Mexican Rice-Beans mix

This week has been so busy for me at work and I have been trying to meet friends socially over meals. So, cooking has been at an all-time low. I can't imagine why work is busy, but I was also trying to train for the half-marathon in town in October. I wanted to start early, because I was not sure how my body will react. And 6 weeks in (I am only running 3 times a week and a maximum of 4 miles), my body is not too happy. My knees, legs and back are often sore. I see the end of this attempt at running for long distances and returning to running for exercising and fun (mixed in with walking). Whatever the reason, we've been having a lot of take out :(






But, I made this Mexican 'take-out' inspired dish the other day. I think it would have been even better if I had some of the tortilla soup as the base, but that was the inspiration. I made some tortilla soup the previous week and had some left over beans and crisped tortillas.

To make this dish, I made rice in the rice cooker using the boullion that I made and froze mixed in with water. It made the rice SO flavorful. To this I added sauteed vegan sausage pieces that I sauteed. Then, I sauteed some Spinach with Beans and fajita seasoning with garlic and 1 tsp oil.

For dinner, we layered rice with sausage, spinach and beans, Salsa (roasted red pepper salsa from Trader Joe's) and topped it off with the crisped tortillas. It was one of the best quick dinners I have made and we both could not stop eating it.

I have been making a lot of soups/stews and I'll probably blog about more of them and while they are very convenient to freeze and re-heat during the week, I wish the weather would get warmer and I don't have to eat quite as much soup/stew.

Thoughts of spring.......